Budapest – the first-ever VEGA Inter-Regional Meeting

The VEGA Network will hold its first-ever Inter-Regional Meeting in Budapest, Hungary on 22-23 March 2019. In addition to an in-house meeting, VEGA has organized an outreach session targeting the group’s main audience: novice interpreters and students of interpretation.

To kick things off, AIIC President Uros Peterc will talk about the importance of our profession, future strategies and the role of AIIC. Up next participants will have an opportunity to see the Oscar-nominated short film about interpreters, Chuchotage, and talk about the inspiration for the film with special guest Barnabas Toth, its director.

We will wrap up the morning, with a VEGA-led conversation on the ethical dilemmas found in the film and in real life. In the afternoon, the VEGA Network will join forces with PRIMS for an interactive Interpreters' BarCamp. Register now for both events!

AIIC’s friendly face

A question that colleagues often ask is “What is VEGA?” The simple answer is that we are AIIC’s outreach division. VEGA is AIIC’s friendly face that helps support, guide and mentor newcomers to the profession, encouraging them to follow best practices and respect the AIIC Code of Ethics.

We strive to make AIIC visible and to help improve working conditions for ALL conference interpreters in the world. We think about the future of our profession and talent development. “Vega” also happens to be the brightest star of the constellation Lyrae and the fifth brightest star in the night sky, which is where we get our name from.

VEGA was launched at the AIIC assembly held in Porto, Portugal, in 2003. Our colleague Silvia Camilo came up with the idea of VEGA as a means of reaching out to young interpreters and students of interpretation. Working primarily in the European context, together with co-founder Maria Stella Vergara and a group of dedicated AIIC members, she strove to reach out to schools, helping to spread the word about the Association and the benefits of joining.

Outreach and mentoring

Today the VEGA Network brings together 19 enthusiastic and dedicated members from 13 regions. Along with PRIMS, the VEGA Network is one of the most geographically diverse groups within the Association, with representatives in 15 countries. While we continue to strive to contact students, our focus has shifted in recent years to best practices in conference interpreting among both formally trained and, importantly, self-taught interpreters.

Unfortunately, in many parts of the world formal training in conference interpreting is not available and while there are many terrific colleagues in those places, there is a dearth of information on the soft skills needed to perform effectively and ethically. Through outreach sessions - not training - VEGA seeks to provide information and encourage students and working professionals alike to join forces with AIIC in its approach to best practices.

As we look to the future, VEGA is enthusiastic about taking on a new task: mentoring. A previous group formed for that purpose, YAIN, has disbanded and VEGA is in the process of devising strategies and methodologies to enable us to further contribute to the development of the coming generation.

“La relève” is the future of the profession. If AIIC is to be relevant in the 21st --and 22nd-- centuries, we need to work with those up-and-coming colleagues and bring them into the fold. VEGA aspires to do precisely that!

For more information, write to us at vega-group@cpcb2.aiic.net

The VEGA Network team looks forward to seeing you at one of our outreach events!

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